NBA ‘Is Reviewing’ Mark Cuban Sexual Assault Accusation From 2011

The NBA is reviewing a sexual assault accusation from 2011 against Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, league spokesperson Mike Bass said Wednesday. Oregon prosecutors had previously declined to press charges over the incident.

“The NBA league office is reviewing the 2011 allegations against Mark Cuban and the subsequent findings from the Portland police investigation,” Bass said.

The Mavericks did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.

News of the NBA’s review comes after the Willamette Week reported Tuesday the accusation against Cuban for the first time almost seven years later. A woman told Portland police in 2011 that Cuban touched her inappropriately at a night club while they were posing for a picture. The Willamette Week obtained the police report detailing the woman’s allegations via a public records request.

Cuban denied the woman’s accusations to police. His accuser said she “stand[s] behind that report 1,000 percent.” The DA ultimately decided not to press charges.

“These allegations are thoroughly investigated by the Multnomah County District’s Attorney’s Office and the Portland Police Bureau,” Cuban’s attorney, Stephen Houze, told the Willamette Week in a statement. “According to the detailed prosecution decline memo, investigators interviewed the complainant’s boyfriend and female friend, as well as employees and patrons of the bar, and other persons with Mr. Cuban and no one observed any inappropriate behavior by Mr. Cuban.”

He added: “This incident never happened and her accusations are false.”

The alleged incident occurred on April 22, 2011, after the Mavs played the Portland Trail Blazers. Cuban and the woman were both at a local bar, where the woman said her boyfriend recognized Cuban and she eventually asked for a picture. The woman’s friend later told police “It was apparent he was very drunk. His eyes were half closed, he was unstable on his feet, and he was slurring his words.”

In Portland Police Detective Brendan McGuire’s summary of the woman’s statement: “He then moved his hand down until it was on her buttocks. Cuban then pushed his hand down the back of her jeans and inside her underwear where he cupped his hand over her groin area and inserted the tip of his finger into her vagina.”

Willamette Week’s report comes two weeks after Sports Illustrated reported on the “corrosive” workplace culture at the Mavericks that included two accusations of assault against Mavs.com reporter Earl K. Sneed that his employers failed to act on. Cuban said it was a “horrible mistake” to continue Sneed’s employment (Sneed was fired after SI’s report). Human resources director Buddy Pittman was also fired after the SI report, Cuban said.

In response to the incident as a whole, Cuban said “I feel sick to my stomach. There’s a problem in the Mavericks organization and we’ve got to fix it.”

Sports and Politics Don't Mix? History Says Otherwise (Photos)

With President Donald Trump's grousing over recent protests in the NFL, the debate over whether athletes should express their political views through the platform of sports has heated up once again. But contrary to what some might believe, the phenomenon of athletes protesting didn't begin with Colin Kaepernick. Read on as TheWrap delves into the long-term relationship between sports and politics.

At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, Tommie Smith and John Carlos -- who'd taken the gold and bronze medalists in the 200-meter dash -- took to the winners podium and raised their fists above their heads in a silent protest against discrimination against African-Americans in the United States. "If I win I am an American, not a black American. But if I did something bad then they would say 'a Negro.' We are black and we are proud of being black," Smith said of the protest.

Boxing legend Muhammad Ali famously refused to serve in the U.S. military during the Vietnam war, noting, “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs?" In 2005, President George W. Bush awarded Ali the Presidential Medal of Freedom, calling him "a fierce fighter and a man of peace."

Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the United States led a boycott of the Summer Olympic Games in Moscow. The boycott would grow to 65 nations who refused to participate in the games.

Four years later, the USSR would return the favor, boycotting the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. "Chauvinistic sentiments and anti-Soviet hysteria are being whipped up in this country," the Soviet government said of the boycott, which 13 other communist countries would also join.

At the beginning of the 1995-1996 NBA season, Denver Nuggets point guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf decided that he wouldn't salute the American flag during the playing of the national anthem prior to games. The decision went unnoticed for some time; when NBA commissioner David Stern handed down a one-game suspension to the player. The NBA later reached a compromise, mandating that Abdul-Rauf stand for the anthem, but allowing him to close his eyes and face downward.

In 2014, following the death of Eric Garner after a confrontation with police in New York, Cleveland Cavaliers stars LeBron James and Kyrie Irving wore shirts emblazoned with the phrase "I Can't Breathe" -- Garner's reported last words -- while warming up for a game against the Brooklyn Nets. Nets players Jarrett Jack, Alan Anderson, Deron Williams and Kevin Garnett also donned the shirts.

In 2016, then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick opted not to stand during the national anthem, saying, "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color ... To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."

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From Muhammad Ali to Colin Kaepernick, a timeline of protesting athletes

With President Donald Trump's grousing over recent protests in the NFL, the debate over whether athletes should express their political views through the platform of sports has heated up once again. But contrary to what some might believe, the phenomenon of athletes protesting didn't begin with Colin Kaepernick. Read on as TheWrap delves into the long-term relationship between sports and politics.